Town and Country Planning articles from June 2006

Town and Country Planning archives from June 2006

25 years ago.(urban planning)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... THE existing public inquiry system is anti-democratic, unconvincing and hopelessly ineffective. At present planning has little credibility with politicians and less with the public. A major reason for this is that planners have allowed the...

10 years ago.(urban planning)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... THE British planning system is basically a sound one: its crucial inadequacy is not that it is out-of-date for contemporary needs, but that most of it has been rendered inoperative by disuse. Problems of scale (less formidable than those of...

5 years ago.(sustainable development)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... THE great promise of sustainable development has been its reconciliatory potential--its insistence on the compatibility of economic, environmental and social objectives. This promise is widely reflected in planning rhetoric. But conflict over...

Context: new digest, May 2006.(House of Commons Public Accounts Committee publishes a report on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link)(Department for Communities and Local Government becomes the successor department to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister)(Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs publishes a report on The Environment Agency)
June 1, 2006... * 4.5 Transport: The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee publishes a report on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, suggesting that it is a magnificent project and a boost to national prestige but that even so "the economic justification for it...

TCPA gives evidence to PGS inquiry.(Town and Country Planning Association, planning gain supplement)
June 1, 2006... IN ITS evidence to the ODPM Select Committee Inquiry into the proposed Planning Gain Supplement (PGS), the TCPA made it clear that is has long supported the principle of a tax on the uplift in land value created by the grant of planning...

Crane-counting in Madrid.(transportation planning)
June 1, 2006... TO ARRIVE in Madrid, especially to arrive from London, is rather like entering a science fictional time machine. Everything in the place looks as if it's been taken straight out of a futuristic movie of the 22nd century--although, doubtless,...

Mixed use--be one block back.
June 1, 2006... NATIONAL planning policy encourages mixed-use development because it makes more vital, viable and attractive communities. After all, what pieces of city do we visit on holiday? Mixed use also reduces the need to travel, especially by car, and...

Social enterprise--vital but neglected.
June 1, 2006... OUTSIDE Eland House near Victoria Station the old letters of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister have been barely scrubbed out and the new sign of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) has been added. The revised...

Local sites--a boost for local distinctiveness? Recent Defra guidance on the development and management of systems to identify sites of local importance for nature conservation contains some helpful material for planners.
June 1, 2006... AREAS OF LANDSCAPE in England that are highly valued locally but outside nationally designated areas can already be protected through criteria-based policies in local development documents (PPS7: Sustainable Development in Rural Areas, para....

Appropriate assessment of land use plans--preparing for the coming storm.
June 1, 2006... The European Habitats Directive requires any land use plan that directly or indirectly affects a special area of conservation for habitats or a special protection area for birds to undergo 'appropriate assessment'. Riki Therivel looks at how AA...

Time for a community consultation surcharge? Barry Pearce looks at the arguments in favour of a surcharge to recover the costs of community involvement, both in decision-making over individual planning applications and in producing development plan documents.
June 1, 2006... LOCAL AUTHORITIES are being called upon to consult the community more on planning applications and development plan documents. Strengthening community involvement is a key part of the Government's planning reforms. (1) The whole endeavour...

One size doesn't fit all; housing density policies are having disastrous consequences for our our smaller towns and cities, and these will only worsen if draft PPS3's guidelines in support of greater densities come into effect.
June 1, 2006... THE WEALTH of our nation is not measured by the gold stored in the vaults of the Bank of England, but by the nature of the society in which we live and the quality of our environment. Our national heritage includes not only our great public...

Travel time and land use planning: despite increases in travel speeds, average personal travel time in Britain has remained unchanged for the past 30 years, and looks set to remain so. This travel time invariance can provide a focus for policy integration in transport and land use planning.(transport and land use planning)
June 1, 2006... TRANSPORT AND LAND USE are intimately connected. We recognise that changes in land use prompt changes in transport demand, while changes in transport infrastructure and travel behaviour can lead to modification of land use patterns....

From housing mix to social mix--housing's contribution to social sustainability: Richard Turkington and Kim Sangster consider what is achievable in terms of the housing-mix/social-mix equation in our pursuit of sustainable communities.(social sustainability)
June 1, 2006... SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES! From jaded estate to faded neighbourhood, from new-build scheme to regeneration project; sustainable community is the goal to which we all aspire. But what does it mean; where has it come from; how do we do it; and how...

Net call for the major players: Peter Jones, Daphne Comfort and David Hillier take a dispassionate look at the emotive subject of protest against the perceived power and influence of the major supermarket companies, as found in pressure group internet webpages and online briefings.
June 1, 2006... NEWSPAPERS and television channels within the UK headlined the recent All Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group report High Street Britain 2015 (1) and the report accompanying Office of Fair Trading's (OFT's) decision to trigger a Competition...

Spare me the details.(modernism)
June 1, 2006... IT IS a serious sign of middle age, but 1981 seems like yesterday to me. I mention this partly because the early 1980s are suddenly in vogue (there is the television series Line of Beauty to prove it) and partly because it was the year of a...

Time for some glamour and style? As there is more rhetoric on local participation, but also increasing evidence that it is far from effective, cynicism could continue to grow. However, some recent national deliberative events may have some lessons for participatory working at all spatial levels.
June 1, 2006... PUBLIC PARTICIPATION has always been done best at local level and, since the Skeffington Report in 1969, planning has very often led the way. Local community participation in the decisions that shape our everyday lives, in the places where we...

Footprints on the planet.(sustainable development)
June 1, 2006... MEASURING overall environmental progress--or, too often, the lack of it--has always been both difficult and controversial. It is easy enough to track the level of nitrates in water supplies or even a nation's total carbon emissions, but...

Cramped teleworkers?(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... A STUDY by the Future Foundation has found that 8 per cent of the British workforce are now doing most of their work online either from home or from a variety of places using their home as a base. The Foundation believes that this proportion...

Pigeon blog.(pigeons to check air pollution)(Brief article)
June 1, 2006... NOAH sent out a dove to check the environment around the Ark. Now a researcher at the University of California is to use pigeons to check pollution above San Jose. Each pigeon will carry a GPS receiver, air pollution sensors and a basic...

Heathrow--a retirement plan.(Heathrow Airport)
June 1, 2006... Introduction In 2006 Heathrow airport celebrates its 60th birthday. It opened for business on 31 May 1946, somewhat inauspiciously, in an army surplus tent. The first permanent building, now Terminal 2, had to wait until 1955, together...